Rain Was A Tease - Dry Heat Returns

For Most Of The Area, Tuesday's Storms Did Little To Alleviate Low Water Levels And Threats Of Wildfires.

May 11, 2000|By Roger Roy of The Sentinel Staff

For a five-day weather forecast, go to orlandosentinel.com.

If this week's thunderstorms had you bidding farewell to the drought and the wildfires, think again.

It turns out Tuesday's storm, which dumped rain on almost all of Central Florida, wasn't the drought-buster we've been waiting for after all.

And in the next few days, we could have some of the hottest, driest weather we've seen this year.

Tuesday's storm ``helped in a few locations,'' said Dennis Decker, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Melbourne. ``But by and large, it made little impact on the fire danger and drought problems we've had.''

Tuesday's storm, the first substantial rain some areas have seen in weeks, dropped up to 3 inches in spots. But most of the region got far less rain, averaging perhaps .1 to .25 inches.

Almost all of Orange County got some rain from the storm, but pockets of Lake, Seminole, Volusia and Osceola didn't get any measurable rainfall.

With rainfall running below average all year, Orlando's rainfall deficit now stands at 6 inches.

Just to stay at that level through May, a month that typically sees nearly 4 inches of rain, we'll need to get nearly an inch a week.

And there's little chance of making up any ground on the deficit in the near term.

``It's going to be a hot and dry weekend,'' state meteorologist Ben Nelson said. ``We could be looking at a rough two to three weeks for the state.''

The problem is that the regular rainy season is still a few weeks away, usually kicking in sometime in late May. Meanwhile, a high-pressure ridge has stalled over the state and is interfering with the development of the storms, which could bring some needed rain.

There's no sign so far that the rainy season won't begin more or less on schedule, Nelson said. And there's no reason to think that weird weather could delay the rains until July, as happened in 1998 when the state was hit by the worst wildfires in its history.

Still, between now and the rainy season, things look to stay drier than usual.

Forecasts for the next few days call for high temperatures into the middle 90s, with the humidity falling to as low as 30 percent. Those conditions will make fires a growing danger, Nelson said.

There's still a chance for thundershowers, but they're not likely to be as widespread as Tuesday's storm, meteorologists said.

``If we could get a solid week of typical Florida wet-season rainfall, it would probably do the trick,'' Decker said. ``But it's not here yet.''